Power Over Others Quotes

• Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Strength, Spiritual, True Power

  Eckhart Tolle (2010). “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment”, p.45, New World Library

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• The possession of power over others is inherently destructive both to the possessor of the power and to those over whom it is exercised.

  George Davis Herron

  Government, Greed, Possession

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• As our power over others increases, we become less free; for to retain it, we must make ourselves its servants.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Increase, Servant

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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  The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.

  John Stuart Mill

  War, Power, Libertarian Party

  On Liberty ch. 1 (1859)

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  When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.

  Jimi Hendrix

  Love, Inspirational, Life

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• Power is a poison well known for thousands of years. If only no one were ever to acquire material power over others! But to the human being who has faith in some force that holds dominion over all of us, and who is therefore conscious of his own limitations, power is not necessarily fatal. For those, however, who are unaware of any higher sphere, it is a deadly poison. For them there is no antidote.

  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  Years, Have Faith, Dominion

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• True Power is within, and it is available now.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Spiritual, True Power, Awareness

  Eckhart Tolle (2010). “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment”, p.45, New World Library

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• In 1776, 1950, or now, there's never been a golden age of liberty, and there never will be. People who value freedom will always have to defend it from those who claim the right to wield power over others. ... And, in today's world, that means more than a musket by the door. It means being an active citizen.

  David Boaz

  Mean, Doors, People

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• A person is not a democrat thanks to his ignorance of literature and the arts, nor an elitist because he or she has cultivated them. The possession of knowledge makes for unjust power over others only if used for that very purpose: a physician or lawyer or clergyman can exploit or humiliate others, or he can be a humanitarian and a benefactor. In any case, it is absurd to conjure up behind anybody who exploits his educated status the existence of an "elite" scheming to oppress the rest of us.

  Jacques Barzun

  Art, Ignorance, Physicians

  "Exeunt the Humanities". Essay by Jacques Barzun (1980) published in his book "The Culture We Deserve" (p. 117), 1989.

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• The passion for power over others can never cease to threaten mankind, and is always sure of finding new and unforseen allies in continuing its martyrology.

  Lord Acton

  Passion, Allies, Mankind

  Lord Acton (2016). “Lectures on Modern History: Great Event”, p.27, VM eBooks

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• Does political correctness have a good side? Yes, it does, for it makes us re-examine attitudes, and that is always useful. The trouble is that, with all popular movements, the lunatic fringe so quickly ceases to be a fringe; the tail begins to wag the dog. For every woman or man who is quietly and sensibly using the idea to examine our assumptions, there are twenty rabble-rousers whose real motive is desire for power over others. The fact that they see themselves as antiracists or feminists or whatever does not make them any less rabble-rousers.

  Doris Lessing

  Dog, Attitude, Real

  "Unexamined Mental Attitudes Left Behind By Communism" by Doris Lessing in "Our Country, Our Culture: The Politics of Political Correctness" edited by Edith Kurzweil and William Philips, 1994.

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• You give bureaucrats power over others, and when the others are poor and helpless, nothing matches government. More than any single exploitive tyrannical force, the possibility of what government can do is absolutely terrifying.

  Millicent Fenwick

  Government, Giving, Gossip

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• There are few problems in the world that economic prosperitycannot help solve. Yet the engines of that prosperity are under fierceattack. The forces that seek power over others have gained the upperhand against those that seek freedom. By harming wealth creation,they cause even more strain on society. Historically, this is nothingnew. State domination over its subjects has roots that connect statism,totalitarianism, communism, and socialism to more modern-day variantsof liberalism and progressivism. It is a constant fight and we mustwin.

  Ziad K. Abdelnour

  Fighting, Roots, Wealth Creation

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• He who stands on tiptoe
  doesn't stand firm.
  He who rushes ahead
  doesn't go far.
  He who tries to shine
  dims his own light.
  He who defines himself
  can't know who he really is.
  He who has power over others
  can't empower himself.
  He who clings to his work
  will create nothing that endures.

  Laozi

  Inspirational, Light, Empowering

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• Humility is often a false front we employ to gain power over others.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Humility, Gains, Fronts

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• We need to redefine strength in men, not as the power over other people, but as forces for justice.

  Jackson Katz

  Men, People, Justice

  "This Is The Real Problem With Male ‘Strength’", www.huffingtonpost.com. February 20, 2014.

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• Abused as we abuse it at present, dramatic art is in no sense cathartic; it is merely a form of emotional masturbation. It is the rarest thing to find a player who has not had his character affected for the worse by the practice of his profession. Nobody can make a habit of self-exhibition, nobody can exploit his personality for the sake of exercising a kind of hypnotic power over others, and remain untouched by the process.

  Aldous Huxley

  Art, Character, Exercise

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• It's when people begin using their religion as just a way of getting power over other people that scares me. I'm afraid that's what's going on in a lot of cases right now. When people deliberately tell lies, Creationism for instance, and pretend, "Oh, it's not really religion." I mean they know they're lying, and yet they're the religious people. There's something wrong there.

  Octavia Butler

  Religious, Lying, Mean

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• Truth gives no advantage. It gives no higher status, no power over others; all you get is truth and freedom from the false.

  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

  Giving, Advantage, Higher

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• In the late '60s, people were saying we need power to, not power over. Power to do, accomplish, create, not power over other people.

  Gloria Steinem

  People, Needs, Accomplish

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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• How many of those who are insecure seek power over others as a compensation for inadequacy and wind up bringing consequences down upon their heads and those around them? How many hide out in their lives, resist the summons to show up, or live fugitive lives, jealous, projecting onto others, and then wonder why nothing ever really feels quite right. How many proffer compliance with the other, buying peace at the price of soul, and wind up with neither?

  James Hollis

  Jealous, Insecure, Wind

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• If you worship power, you will feel weak and afraid, needing ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay.

  David Foster Wallace

  Worship, Weak, Feels

  "'Plain Old Untrendy Troubles and Emotions'". www.theguardian.com. September 19, 2008.

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• Nature, philosophy and social issues are the three things that always occupy my mind. You do not have any power over others but can only change yourself.

  Pawan Kalyan

  Philosophy, Issues, Mind

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• There are no living beings who exert more power over others, pound for pound, than tiny babies and extremely thin moguls.

  Stanley Bing

  Baby, Moguls, Tiny

  "Landmark Study Reveals That CEOs Are Remarkably Similar to Babies" by Stanley Bing, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 9, 2011.

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• Men in great place are thrice servants; servants of the sovereign state, servants of fame, and servants of business; so as they have no freedom, neither in their persons, nor in their actions, nor in their times. It is a strange desire to seek power and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man's self.

  John Locke

  Men, Self, Liberty

  John Locke (1813). “The Conduct of the Understanding: With Sketches of the Lives of Locke and Bacon”, p.128

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